Tim Trott's Blog
The weblog of an amateur Astronomer, Photographer, Programmer and car enthusiast.
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Tuesday 17th July 2007
Your new website not performing as well as it should be? Have you optimised your site for Search Engines? This guide will help you improve search engine ranking.
SEO, or Search Engine Optimisation, is the process of making your website or page more attractive to the major search engines such as Google or Yahoo. Google, Yahoo and MSN Live are becoming more and more important for online marketing. Ten years ago it was rare to find a search engine (in fact the author can remember using Google in 1997 when there were only 300,000 pages indexed!), most websites were then still using word of mouth and direct marketing such as print and magazines to promote their website and gain traffic.
Over the past ten years the number of pages indexed by Google has increased by a factor of 6000, and competition has become more and more fierce for the top places.
This article will give you some optimisation tips to gain the edge over your competitors in search engine rankings.
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This post is filed under Articles, Internet, Search Engine Optimisation, WWW by Lonewolf at 4:36pm
An introduction to Variable Stars
Sunday 22nd April 2007
Variable stars are stars that vary in brightness over a period of time. Some stars vary by a hundredth of a magnitude, others by a factor of 15 or more. The time taken for each period can be seconds or years, with some variables having a periodic frequency, while others are irregular.
This basic article explains what a variable star is, the types of variable stars and how they are used by astronomers. Full Story: Variable Stars
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This post is filed under Articles, Astronomy by Lonewolf at 4:50pm
Wednesday 18th April 2007
One of the fundamental concepts in astronomy is that of Magnitude. You cannot get far in astronomy without a reference; even on the television weather forecast when clear skies are predicted.
This short guide explains what magnitude is and how the magnitude scale was devised.
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This post is filed under Articles, Astronomy by Lonewolf at 8:49pm
Sunday 25th March 2007
When photographing the stars without a tracking or a motor driven mount, long exposures will create star trails as the Earth rotates. This gives the appearance of stars moving across the sky. This simple calculator will tell you how many seconds before stars start to trail given the focal length of the lens and the objects declination in degrees. This can be used to find the maximum exposure time for a starry sky photo, or the minimum time for a star trail photo.
You can find the calculator here: Star Trail Calculator
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This post is filed under Articles, Photography by Lonewolf at 11:11pm
Comparing Close-up filters with a Macro Lens
Wednesday 21st March 2007
I have had quite a few emails asking whether somebody should purchase a macro lens or a set of close-up filters, and how they compare in quality, sharpness and focusing distance. The last email I started me thinking: She asked what would the difference be between a macro lens close to the subject vs. a telephoto lens further away.
Close-up filters generally cost in the region of £15, whereas a Macro lens would be £300+, so is a macro lens worth the extra money?
I went away and did some investigation and you can find out my results on this page: Comparing Close-up filters with a Macro Lens
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This post is filed under Articles by Lonewolf at 8:44pm
Collimation of a Newtonian Reflector
Sunday 1st October 2006
Poor optical alignment in a Newtonian will make objects difficult to resolve, poor detail in planets and nebulae, create images flaring, decrease contrast and greatly reduce the enjoyment from ones telescope. Collimation is the process of aligning the mirrors within a Newtonian telescope so that they are gathering and focusing the incoming light at the optimum point and directing it at the center of the eyepiece.
This pictorial guide shows you how to correctly align the optical surface with the axis of the telescope for the best performance. I also show you how a laser collimation tool can be used to further improve the accuracy.
Read the full article: Collimation of a Newtonian Reflector
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This post is filed under Articles, Astronomy by Lonewolf at 8:41am
Polar Alignment on a HEQ5 mount
Thursday 15th June 2006
If like me your Sky Watcher telescope mount didn’t come with instructions, or you don’t understand the poorly translated Chinese from the website, then hopefully this guide will help you to setup your mount. It is based on a Sky Watcher HEQ5 mount with dual axis motor drive but the technique should be applicable to any equatorial mount.
Read the full article here: Polar Alignment on a HEQ5 mount
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This post is filed under Articles, Astrophotography by Lonewolf at 11:11pm
Digitally Reduce Light Pollution in Paint Shop Pro or Photoshop
Thursday 25th May 2006
For most people Light Pollution is the single most aggravating factor when observing the universe. In modern life the effects are inescapable and astrophotos take on a orange haze, or “City Glow”. In this tutorial I will show you how to reduce this light pollution and correct uneven field illumination caused by gradients in light levels. The software I will be using is Paint Shop Pro 6, but the methods can be adapted to be used on any similar package such as Photoshop.
Read the full article: Digitally Reduce Light Pollution in Paint Shop Pro or Photoshop
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This post is filed under Articles, Light Pollution by Lonewolf at 7:25pm
